Читать книгу Young Lady Randolph - Rene Kraus - Страница 9

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Now the Empress had escaped, there was little hope that France would return to her old glory. Should they remain in Deauville? Winter at the seacoast was not inviting. Moreover, the hotel was about to close for the season. It had to be farewell to France. The ladies Jerome crossed the Channel. But Jennie’s heart remained in immortal Paris. In England she only hoped to find a temporary exile.

Her first impressions of London were disappointing beyond her worst expectations. “A winter spent in the gloom and fog of London did not tend to dispel the melancholy we felt,” she reminisced. “Our friends scattered, fighting, or killed at the front; debarred as we were from our bright little house and all our household goods, it was indeed a sad time.”

There was only one escape for the refugees: to build a shadow-Paris on the Thames. London was teeming with French refugees. Most of them led miserable lives. The Duc de Persigny was a sorry remnant of his old, proud self. Broken-hearted, ill, and penniless, he was, Jennie observed, “put to many straits to eke out a living.” He had to sell some gold plates and other precious belongings he had managed to take with him on his escape. The once “dapper little man with a pleasant manner,” always carefully groomed in his high-buttoned black morning coat with gray trousers, never appearing without a silk hat, white gloves, and a cane with a gold knob, was now reduced to destitution. Yet his spirit was unbroken. He dabbled in high affairs of state as if he were still His Majesty’s cabinet minister and ambassador. Difficult as it was to scratch together the pennies for luxurious stationery and stamps, he flooded the world with letters, offering his advice on how to solve difficulties in international affairs. Having had his own experience with war, the old saber-rattler was now a confirmed pacifist. He even wrote to Herr von Bismarck, suggesting, as a guarantee of eternal Franco-Prussian peace, the enthroning of the Prince Imperial in Paris, with Eugénie to act as a regent. This was a proof of his utter unselfishness. He no longer liked the Empress, whose most devoted servant and vocal admirer he had once been. The life of a refugee does not tend to strengthen old ties. Indeed, it disrupts them. The other fellow, who has escaped as well, is always guilty of the whole calamity. Eugénie had visited her husband in his Prussian prison, the fortress Wilhelmshoehe. On this visit, it filtered out, she had treated her despondent mate rather haughtily. Whether such rumors were true or not, the Duc de Persigny, now an old man beyond his years, preferred even the restoration of the haughty lady to a continuation of life in foggy exile.

Herr von Bismarck, supervising the war that dragged on with the siege of Paris, had no time for correspondence with a ghost. Instead, the Duc de Persigny received an answer to his suggestion from Wilhelmshoehe. Toward the middle of January 1871 he visited Jennie (in whose mother’s London house, a faint copy of the home in the Champs Elysées, he was now a persistent guest), waved a piece of paper, and asked: “Do you want an autograph for your collection, Mademoiselle? Read this letter from the Emperor, and keep it, if you care to. I’ll have little use for it in the future.”

The letter, dated Wilhelmshoehe, 7. January 1871, was a warning from Napoleon, begging the Duke not to meddle in the dynasty’s affairs. Even benevolent interference could only make trouble with Bismarck. Evidently Napoleon had had to refute Persigny’s plan as wholly unauthorized when the Chancellier du Reich asked him whether the Emperor was behind Persigny’s scheming. “Croyez, mon cher Persigny, à mon amitié,” the angry epistle from Wilhelmshoehe closed. This sentence sufficed to convince Persigny that he had lost a life-long friend and master.

Jennie kept the letter in her collection, and Persigny retained his perfect composure—until life with his wife became unbearable. The Duchess had always been an exuberant Anglomaniac. Chamarande, her château near Paris, had been entirely furnished after the English fashion, with an unfailing taste for what Jennie called “the least attractive stuffing of the early Victorian period.” Several rooms at Chamarande had been strictly copied from Balmoral; they were decorated with tartan curtains and carpets which, again according to Jennie, had always made art-loving French visitors “rub their eyes.”

The Duchess, having funds of her own, was determined to copy the copy of Balmoral somewhere on English soil. “In Rome behave as the Romans do, and in England like the English,” she tutored her husband.

Somewhat incoherently the little duke replied: “I do not like the English weather.” Then he took a Bible, one of the few presents from Napoleon he had preserved, and went to bed. For many years he had not thumbed through the Book. In the morning Bastien, his old valet, found His Highness’s body with the Bible still clutched in the stiff hands. The Duc de Presigny, né Victor Fialin, had made his exit unassumingly.

Not all the fugitives from the defunct Imperial court who had gathered in London suffered similar sad fates. “Two pretty and lively refugees from Paris,” Jennie recollected, “much entertained, and scandalized a little, London society during that winter, 1870-71. The Duchesse de Carraciolo and the Comtesse de Béchevet, with their respective husbands and a few Frenchmen who preferred shooting birds in England to being shot at in France, took a country house.” At a party there, some French refugees amused themselves with a rather tasteless practical joke. One of them, professing to be a distinguished doctor from abroad, all of a sudden stared at the Comte de Béchevet, and uttered, with every sign of horror: “My dear comte, you are a dying man!”

Refugees are rarely shock-proof. M. de Béchevet was no exception. Immediately he felt his heart failing. He lay down on a sofa, and asked for a priest. Mysteriously, a “father” appeared. He was, of course, another of the French merrymakers, a partner to the jocose conspiracy. He received the dying man’s last confession. Many of the tender and intimate secrets of the court in the Tuileries came to light. “They were eagerly listened to by the rest of the party,” Jennie recorded, “who had hidden behind curtains. Their peals of laughter resuscitated the dying man.” Personally, she was disgusted. To her it was a sorry show; the dead playing death.

All London was infuriated as the story made the rounds. The clergy protested formally against the blasphemous behavior of certain unwelcome intruders from France. Queen Victoria was not amused. Yet she betook herself to Eugénie, who had established her modest home at Camden House, Chislehurst. It was a gracious and courageous gesture to visit Eugénie at the very moment in which her subjects had challenged English taste. Victoria, obviously, did not wish to leave her good friend in the lurch. “My dear Empress,” she said, entering the country cottage.

“The Empress is dead,” replied Eugénie, curtsying like a commoner. Two ladies chatted. But it was no longer quite the same as in the days when their Majesties had exchanged state visits. Queen Victoria was merely charitable.

It was humiliating. Jennie felt ashamed to belong, in a way, among this macabre crowd of refugees from a shattered court. But they were her only friends. England was not yet her country. All she heard about the island were the eternal complaints about the fog. Her French surrounding harped incessantly on the disagreeable climate. England, the asylum, England, having given the Imperial flotsam a new lease on life,—England remained distant and impenetrable.

One day in February, 1871, Leonard Jerome crossed the ocean for a short visit. He wanted to have a look at his loved ones before proceeding to besieged Paris where he had an appointment with the American General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was just about to complete his European tour.

Paris, agonizing during the last weeks of the siege, was, of course, the most difficult place on earth to be admitted to. This difficulty had probably inspired both General Sherman and Leonard Jerome to lay a large wager as to which of the two would be the first to break through the Prussian cordon around the besieged city. The great General Sherman spent many months touring Europe at his leisure, until, relying on his name and fame, he turned his steps toward Paris. He was received with high honors both by the German jailers around the town, and by the prisoners, the denizens of Paris.

However, he lost his bet. Already installed in the Metropole, Jerome received him with a delighted chuckle. The Paris adventure was not very important; it was probably just one more proof of Jerome’s insatiable curiosity. But it had been planned with scrupulous care. First Jerome claimed, and got permission to visit Mr. Washburn, the American Minister. To be on the safe side, he there attached himself to the U. S. General Duff, who entered Paris on February 7, 1871. The latter’s entrée was considerably less solemn than Sherman’s arrival. Prussian sentries searched General Duff before allowing him to cross the lines, and confiscated a leg of mutton which the general, well informed about the starvation in Paris, had cautiously stuffed into his pocket. Jerome, for his part, was taken through the Prussian lines blindfolded. The third American General in Paris, Mr. Burnside, was not molested at all. He carried a Prussian laissez-passer, describing him as the “most prominent general, next to Grant and Sherman, in the Civil War,” and he enjoyed Bismarck’s personal benevolence. He had the run of the fighting front. He was, people rumored, the most promising of the innumerable neutral peacemakers trafficking between Paris and Versailles.

Versailles was a German town during the occupation. Prussian soldiers replaced the local police. They tramped the streets in goose-step. The principal promenade resembled an avenue in Potsdam. The whole town had the appearance of a vast Prussian barracks. German artillery occupied the courtyard of the Royal Castle. German sentries paced at its gates. But for the silent, obviously uneasy patrols the broad streets were empty. The inhabitants of Versailles held strictly aloof from the invader’s garrison. Intercourse was solely of a business nature. Only the waitresses in the restaurants smiled. They charged messieurs les cuirassiers thrice the normal price for a glass of beer. At that, the cuirassiers did not get any further with them. Their gallant attacks were invariably repulsed. When the disappointed German heroes finally left the place, they could frequently hear the barmaids whispering behind them: “Jean, rinse out those glasses. The Fritz have drunk out of them.”

German dignitaries, officials and officers were cold-shouldered in the houses in which they were billeted. German wounded filled the halls and corridors of Louis XIV’s palace. The cellars of the Hotel des Reservoirs and Vatel’s, the world-famous eating place, were depleted by the bibulous members of the Zweite Staffel—second squadron—composed exclusively of German princelings and dukes in the King of Prussia’s personal service. But in one aspect Versailles was curiously cosmopolitan. All sorts of amazing people from the four corners of the globe swarmed there, engaged in a multiplicity of errands. Mere sight-seers rubbed shoulders with adventurers, inventors of brand-new super-rifles, diplomats, go-betweens and intriguers from every country. Versailles under the Prussian jack-boot focused the attention of the whole world. Life was gay. Merrily they plotted and conspired. Banquets, gala receptions, even innocent skating parties were the order of the day—all to the accompaniment of cannon-thunder.

Leonard Jerome was immediately at home in this super-charged atmosphere. Although he had sold out his interests in the New York Times shortly before his journey to Europe, he fraternized with the large corps of correspondents covering the Hotel des Reservoirs, King Wilhelm I’s temporary residence, and the most important beat in the contemporary world. His feelings were in no way involved in the Franco-Prussian conflict. The veteran newspaperman wanted only to ascertain the facts of the situation. Could business with the continent be resumed at an early date? This question alone expressed his emotional share in the great wrestling-match over European supremacy. If that man Bismarck stated that self-interest should be the guiding star in politics, why, Leonard Jerome had long applied this maxim both for the benefit of his beloved country and for his own. He felt no compunction in accompanying General Burnside on a visit to Herr von Bismarck. He overcame a slight pique because he had not been invited to dinner. After all, important affairs of state were to be discussed at table. Perhaps Burnside would spill the beans on the way home.

At the appointed hour Mr. Jerome appeared at 14 Rue de Province, the house of Mme. Jessé, the widow of a once prosperous textile manufacturer. Her mansion was now requisitioned as Herr von Bismarck’s residence. Leonard was kept waiting for longer than an hour, an insult which he would never have stomached in New York, but to which he resigned himself good-naturedly as a sample of German manners. Besides, the time of waiting passed most pleasantly chatting with the widow Jessé, who crept out of the tiny attic room, all that was left to her, as soon as she heard that there was an American gentleman in the antechamber, Americans were tremendously popular with the oppressed French who hoped the unofficial meddling of the various American generals between Paris and Versailles would secure an acceptable peace.

Mme. Jessé could not conceal that she was, in a way, awe-stricken by the great man who had appropriated her house. Although herself on the brink of starvation, she relished the smells that rose from Herr von Bismarck’s kitchen, and reached her attic room. Sniffing the rich aroma of the daily gala dinners was a sort of substitute for her own nourishment.

“He is certainly a strange man,” she said, wavering between horror and respect. “When I complained to him that his servants had packed up all my plates and table linen, and carried them off, he replied: ‘But they left behind a lot of nice things, didn’t they? Let’s have a look at this clock, for example.’ Bismarck,” Mme. Jessé continued, “grasped the old family timepiece, topped by a goblin-like figure, appraised it and asked: ‘How much?’ Well,” the old lady recollected, “I replied just as crisply: ‘Five thousand!’ He put the chronometer back on the mantelpiece. Chivalrously he clicked his heels and said he did not want to deprive me of the goblin with its grimaces. It might be valuable to me as a family portrait.”

“Mr. Jerome,” a little Jewish-looking man interrupted the conversation, opening the door. “His Excellency expects you.” (Dr. Moritz Busch noted in his diary: Received an elderly American gentleman in a red shirt with white paper cuffs.)

Bismarck, obviously in high spirits, offered the newcomer wine and cigars. “I was just confessing to the general,” he said with a glance at Burnside which unmistakably drew the limit of how much was to be disclosed of the previous conversation, “that in my youth I was myself inclined toward the republican idea. But the German nation is not yet ripe for it. That is why I admire the Americans. Do you know Motley? The best man, I dare say, I have met in my life.”

Leonard Jerome had no time to affirm that he was indeed, on excellent terms with the great American scholar-diplomat. Bismarck was already off on another tack. Well knowing that he was speaking to a renowned Wall Street broker, he complained about Baron Rothschild, who, until the war, had been Prussian Consul General in Paris, and yet had had the insolence to have his wine cellar emptied before the Prussian staff took over his chateau at Ferrière. “The Jews,” he said, while his press-chief was listening the other way, talking eagerly to General Burnside, “the Jews have still really no true home; they are cosmopolitan nomads. Their fatherland is Jerusalem. Otherwise they belong to the whole world. But there are good and honest people among them, too. Perhaps there are not many such Jews now. However, they have virtues of their own: respect for their parents, fidelity in marriage, and charitableness.... Incidentally,” he interrupted himself, “have you met Prince Radziwill?”

A tall, square-faced gentleman bowed from the waistline. He approached Jerome with three carefully calculated steps, and sat down next to him without the slightest movement of the upper part of his body. He had evidently been assigned to entertain the new guest, whereupon Bismarck turned around to resume his conversation with General Burnside. “We do not wish that the fortresses Metz and Strasbourg should be dismantled. We wish to take them over intact so as to turn the guns the other way round.”

Not without difficulty Prince Radziwill embarked upon his task of polite entertainment. “Yes ...” he said, and cleared his throat, “Yes ... really....”

He did not have to exert himself for long. Bismarck did not wait for General Burnside to answer. The Chancellor had had his say, and that was final. Jerome was a most welcome lightning-conductor. “The wine is more important than the Jews,” Bismarck addressed him suddenly. In Prussia such a mot passed for a witticism. “Have a glass of Médoc. God forgive me the unpatriotic sin, but I even prefer it to our German Deidesheimer.” It was I all the time. Bismarck was omniscient. He knew all about hunting, traveling, cuisine, and wines. His opinion on mushroom with the fish, his innovation of spicing the roast with a few slices of sausage, were almost as authoritarian as what he thought about horses. His egocentric conversation, however, was the megalomaniac’s, not the braggart’s talk He admitted that he had been thrown from his horse at least fifty times in his life. “No harm is done,” he said, “as long as you fall clear. But if you crash to the ground with your mare, and have her on top of you, gentlemen, that’s too bad. Once upon a time it happened to me that I ... He never ended the story. He was already insisting that a statesman should not gamble on the stock exchange. There was usually not much money in it. Advance knowledge gives only very limited advantage. Political events are too insecure. They have their effect on the exchange only later, no one knows when. One can of course produce a bear market by manipulating political events. Many French Ministers are doing that. But in Berlin, where everything is so precise, state telegrams have only twenty to thirty minutes’ precedence over bourse telegrams. Then one must have a Jew who can run fast enough to take advantage of the short intervals. Thus one could earn from five hundred to five thousand thalers (dollars) daily, which in a couple of years in office would amount to a good deal. Some do it. But it is a disgraceful business. Besides, in a constitutional state one is never sure of what turn things might take.”

Bismarck recalled what had happened to him a few years earlier. On his way to Paris, to negotiate the Neuchâtel business with Napoleon in the spring of 1857, he had stopped at Frankfurt to order Rothschild to sell short, because a Prussian war with Switzerland was in the making. Rothschild warned him, but he, Bismarck, had answered, “If you knew what I know....” Rothschild shrugged and sold. Then the King of Prussia changed his mind. The war with Switzerland was called off. The stock market boomed. “And I lost my shirt with this accursed Jew Rothschild....”

Leonard Jerome was fascinated. Was Bismarck’s story not his own? Why had he himself suffered so many reverses in the last years? Simply because he, too, was too much of a statesman. Friend Bismarck, he felt like saying, recollecting with relish the innumerable horse stories, dinner recipes, and travels through the wine card the Iron Chancellor had crammed into his hour-long soliloquy.

It was all wrong to call Bismarck a barbarian. Why, he dismissed his American guests in a most cordial manner, stuffing their pockets with excellent, full-flavored cigars, joking, “Pass around the bottles.” In the same breath he addressed General Burnside: “Remember, in July neither the King nor I nor our people felt the slightest inclination for war. The declaration came as a perfect surprise to us, but still it raised no wish of conquest. Our army is excellent for a war of defense, but not easy to use for plans of conquest, for the army is the people, and nowhere are the people desirous of glory. They wish and need peace. That is the explanation why our press, the voice of the people, now demands a better frontier. In the presence of the ambitious French nation, greedy for conquest, we must, for the sake of peace, think of our future security, which we can only find in a better defense position than we have at present.”

General Burnside uttered no opinion. Bidding farewell, he confined himself to praising the excellent organization of the Prussian army and the heroism of the troops. Jerome was enthusiastic. This man Bismarck was a man of peace, a man of great affairs, and a true connoisseur of life.

Probably Leonard Jerome, to whom horses, the stock exchange, and the wine card were essential elements of life, did not grasp immediately that to friend Bismarck they were nothing but an escape mechanism. During the long months of the siege of Paris the Chancellor was a restless, depressed man. The days passed slowly. He had to spend them mostly in detail work which was strange to his cosmic interests. His nights were sleepless, interrupted by lonely walks in the gardens of Versailles, which he had surrounded by high walls since he well realized that everyone in France hated him. He was sick of being exposed to constant attempts on his life. (Not that any individual incident had ever frightened him. But he complained that he could never go out without a pistol. The bodyguard was unreliable. His two great Danes were his only real protection.) Frequently he had to stop his stroll after a short time. This mass of nerves was an overgrown, overweight man; his feet ached persistently. When he returned in the middle of the night, secret documents, flowing in twenty-four hours a day, awaited him on his desk. They were mostly reports about the dissatisfaction of the generals who furtively plotted against the civilian dictatorship. Once Moltke, the commander-in-chief, had openly spoken out. In the name of the army he demanded an immediate attack on Paris. Idling in their winter-quarters the troops were getting restive. Paris could and should be cracked like a nut.

This old fool, Moltke, understood nothing of a bloodless victory. What would Europe say to the destruction of Paris? The Iron Chancellor despised Europe. But at this time the continent was still a reality. “Perhaps a later generation of Prussians will be able to send Europe to hell!” he confided to Dr. Moritz Busch. “But not we in our lifetime!” Moreover, if Paris had not to be cracked like a nut, the city would decay like a rotten apple. He had his spies inside Paris. Every half hour one of them was caught and shot, but thousands of others returned with the most encouraging news.

General Burnside, again in Jerome’s company, visited Bismarck a second time, beseeching him not to destroy Paris. But on their second mission the American good-will ambassadors were not so well received. Abruptly the Chancellor replied: “Why shall Paris not be bombarded? Why should it be a crime against civilians to destroy collections, splendid buildings and ancient monuments? Paris is a fortress. Its treasures of art and its historic palaces don’t alter the fact. If the Parisians wish to keep their monuments and their collections of books and pictures, they should not surround them with fortifications! ... I have only one message to convey to the Parisians. I will say: You two millions are answerable to me with your lives. I shall leave you to starve for twenty-four hours until we get everything we want from you. And twenty-four hours on top of that. What happens during that time is all the same to me. The delay will not harm me, but you!”

Silently, the Americans turned away. Bismarck stopped them for another moment: “And I have an excellent idea for the time when peace is concluded. We will establish a tribunal to try those who instigated this war, newspaper writers, deputies, senators, ministers.”

“And you can bet this bloody beast will do it, too!” Jerome said after leaving. He was through with friend Bismarck. But again he misunderstood the Prussian enigma. Bismarck’s bullying was bluff. He was firmly determined to stick to his strangulating policy of patience—the gift with which he was endowed least of all—even if it should choke not only Paris, but himself. A bloodless victory was falling into his lap. He had only to keep his army quiet for another few days. The confidential looting order he issued was to bridge this delay.

“And so this devilish brain devised the idea of distracting his men by pillaging and looting. Open season was declared,” Leonard Jerome, back in London, sick of the European continent, concluded his report.

He ended his narrative, Jennie recollected, with what she called “a graphic description of the triumphal entry of the victorious army in Paris, rolling down the Champs Elysées. Masses of infantry, most of them wearing spectacles, marched by the Arc de Triomphe, which was barricaded, and through the deserted streets of the once gay city, singing Die Wacht am Rhein. Many were the stories of individual suffering and despair, of hair-breadth escapes and brave deeds, told him by the besieged.” And many were the stories of General Sherman barking at the German victors whose outrageous cruelty made him positively sick.

Jennie never forgot a single one of these stories. The duties of her subsequent career forced her to mingle with the court of the Hohenzollerns, once or twice to visit Bismarck, and to entertain many aristocratic Prussians. The Germans always behaved in a cordial and polite fashion to her. Yet she could hardly breathe in their company.